UPDATE 10/18/16: Wikileaks and the Ecuadorian embassy in London confirmed that Ecuador cut off Julian Assange's Internet access. In a statement in Spanish, Ecuador said that it "temporarily restricted access to part of its communications systems in its UK Embassy," the BBC reported.

Ecuador said its decision was related to Wikileaks' publication of documents pertaining to the US presidential election, but denied receiving pressure from the US government to censure Assange.

ORIGINAL STORY: A "state party" has cut off Wikileaks founder Julian Assange's Internet access, the organization announced on Twitter today.

Assange, who said in August that US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton should be considered a threat to national security for using a private email server during her time as Secretary of State, is currently holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London in an effort to avoid extradition to Sweden.

In a vague tweet this morning, Wikileaks announced that "Julian Assange's internet link has been intentionally severed by a state party. We have activated the appropriate contingency plans."

Wikileaks offered no further information on its contingency plans to restore Assange's Internet access or why it was cut off, and a spokesperson did not immediately respond to PCMag's request for comment.

The organization on Monday continued to release records from the FBI's probe into Clinton's private email server, including posting 100 more pages of the investigation to Archive.org. In an interview with NPR in August, Assange said the Department of Justice's decision not to prosecute Clinton for handling classified information on the private server was an "incredible double standard."

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Neither Assange nor Wikileaks have revealed the source of the FBI documents, although security experts have singled out Russian hackers as a potential source. The FBI in September confirmed that Russian hackers accessed the servers of the Democratic National Committee.

Assange denied the release of more documents surrounding the FBI investigation was aimed at damaging Clinton's presidential campaign.

"I've been misquoted on this publication," he said at an Oct. 4 press conference, according to Mashable. "They said we intend to harm Hillary Clinton. That's false. The upcoming publication is significant to the U.S. elections."

In addition to facing controversy over its decision to release the emails, Wikileaks has also been criticized by security experts for its lax malware filters. In August, a Bulgarian security researcher found that the Wikileaks database includes more than 300 emails containing malware and other malicious attachments.

As a hardware analyst, Tom tests and reviews laptops, peripherals, and much more at PC Labs in New York City. He previously covered the consumer tech beat as a news reporter for PCMag in San Francisco and Silicon Valley, where he rode in several self-driving cars and witnessed the rise and fall of many startups. Before that, he worked for PCMag's sister site, Computer Shopper, where he occasionally dunked waterproof hard drives in glasses of water. In his spare time, he's written on topics as...
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